Foods That Are Bad For Your Performance

10 Seemingly Healthy Foods That Will Rob You Of Your Performance

Considering the amount of times we eat during the day, the question we ask ourselves most often is: “What am I going to eat?” Food gives us life; it gives us energy. Choosing anti-inflammatory, low-toxin food with the highest nutritional content is the best thing we can do for our body and brain. Another question we should be asking ourselves is, “What am I not going to eat?” Certain foods — I like to call them “kryptonite foods” or “not foods” — can also rob you of peak performance, make you gain weight, promote aging, and even contribute to disease.

In my research, I found that foods fall on a spectrum ranging from the most beneficial to the absolute worst. I designed the Bulletproof Roadmap to make things clearer, a scale that rates foods from Bulletproof (the best) to toxic.

These foods aren’t going to kill you today, but they’re a surefire way to cheat you out of being your optimal self over time. Choose foods that give you energy and protect you against disease instead of foods that are an enormous cost to your brain and body.

Mushrooms

Yes, really. Even though mushrooms (a fungus) boost the immune system, my aversion to mushrooms is due to the fact they help yeast grow. Normal levels of yeast support digestion and nutrient absorption, but the western diet makes you vulnerable to overgrowth. Common consequences are brain fog, fungal infections, digestive issues, skin issues, mood swings, allergies, food cravings, and fatigue. Work with an herbalist if you think you want to take mushrooms medicinally.

Canned Vegetables (And Canned Fruit)

These are usually high in histamines, and contaminated with BPA through the canning process. To make matters worse, the veggies are heated at high temperatures and mixed with additives and preservatives to increase their shelf life. They lose their nutritional value.

Bad Fats

Good fats are the most energetic, clean macronutrients in the body. The bad fats? Safflower and sunflower oils are unstable and easily susceptible to oxidation, which means they promote inflammation. This is also true of canola, corn, cottonseed, flax, peanut, soy and other “vegetable” oils. These oils are likely to contribute to cancer and metabolic problems. I also avoid commercial lard because pathogens and toxins coming from the environment and contaminated grains collect in the cattle’s fat tissues.

Margarine And Artificial Trans Fats

Even though these are fats too, they are so bad they deserve a stand-alone mention. These fats will lower your levels of HDL cholesterols and increase your risk of heart disease. They make you sluggish, deplete your brain function, and age you. Need another reason to nix the glowing, yellow tub of margarine? Trans fats have been linked to Alzheimer’s disease, liver damage, depression, and infertility.

Soy

Soy is misleadingly marketed as a health food when it's mostly a GMO-fueled flamethrower attacking your wellbeing. Soy crops have a real issue with mold toxins. Soy is also a major anti-nutrient, containing a type of protein that is highly allergenic. Also, its fat content almost all comes from omega-6 fatty acids. When you heat soy products, you run the risk of consuming oxidized fats. Apart from that, eating lots of soy means playing the lottery with your thyroid. Soy inhibits thyroid function, which leads to a slower metabolism (you get fat) and lower brain function.

Beans

“Beans, beans, the magical fruit...” Beans make you toot because eating them is the equivalent of sending little destructive meanies into your digestive tract. They screw with digestion, disturb stomach acid production, and inhibit growth. Studies show that they contain fiber, lectins and digestion inhibitors that can hurt your gut. And they are also almost as high in carbs as pasta.

Pasteurized, Conventional, Low-Fat And Fat-Free Dairy Products

Pasteurization and homogenization kill the nutrients and oxidize the fat in raw milk. Along with gluten, dairy ranks as a top allergen and is connected to osteoporosis, heart disease and a mixed bag of autoimmune conditions. Factory farm-raised cattle are fed GMO grains, antibiotics and synthetic hormones, all of which wreck havoc on our systems.

Cheese

I know I am shooting straight for the heart with this one. Cheese causes inflammation in the brain, joints, and skin. Why? Because of the mold toxins, which come from two places. The first one is passive, via the dairy cows that eat contaminated grains. The second one is when we purposefully or accidentally introduce mold to cheese. Of these mycotoxins, sterigmatocystin is a potent carcinogen.

Farmed Seafood

These fish are chock full of pesticides, heavy metals, parasites and environmental contaminants. Their nutritional value is far inferior to the one of their wild-caught counterparts. Also, fish farms that aren’t run sustainably can harm the fish population and the planet.

Commercial Salad Dressings

Even the "healthy" ones are an orchestrated disaster of engineered food products like artificial flavors, refined oils, cheap preservatives and sometimes-unlabeled MSG. Some low-fat versions use artificial sweeteners like aspartame.

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